Airports Authority of India (AAI) is going to set up a world-class Civil Aviation Research Organization (CARO) to find out indigenous solutions for meeting challenges thrown by burgeoning air traffic and for enhancing safety, capacity and efficiency of aircraft operations.

Minister of commerce, industries and civil aviation Suresh Prabhu laid the foundation stone for CARO on July 5.

The CARO will be spread across a sprawling area of 27 acres and cater to air navigation service and airport/engineering research for which AAI has earmarked a staggering Rs 1200 crores for a period of 12 years for R&D.

The institute will house world-class infrastructure and will be equipped with simulators. It is likely to be completed in two to three years.

Prabhu raised the landmark initiative of AAI in setting up CARO and the readiness of industry partners like Boeing and Honeywell and academic institutions for collaborative research with AAI, which is critical for the domain of R&D.

He said the need of the hour is to find solutions through research for enhancing safety, convenience of passenger and capacity through resource optimisation particularly in view of the infrastructural constraints. He appeared optimistic that with the setting up of CARO, India will be well placed to handle the burgeoning air traffic situation with the passenger trips likely to increase from 200 million to a billion in the foreseeable future.

Ministry of civil aviation secretary R N Choubey impressed upon CARO to take up research work on four priority areas— increasing airport throughput with the existing infrastructural limitations, airspace optimisation, cost-effective infrastructure solutions for the upcoming 56 RCS airports and integrating drones in civil airspace.